This volume has lengthened itself out much beyond the author’s intention, and it is more than time to close it with the word which, in human life, is rarely uttered without some tone of pain in the trembling voice. It is only as I write it that I myself realize all there has been of nearness and of feeling, constituting a link of personal relation and sympathy between writer and reader; at least on her humble side. It seems as though, throughout the double process, reciprocal in its nature, we have come, by a sort of Spiritual communion, to know each other as friends—speaking for myself, I had almost said of loving friends.

But “finale” is a less melancholy word to the Spiritualist than it is to those who are less penetrated with his knowledge that what men mistakenly shrink from as “death” is but the beginning of higher and happier life, developed in re-birth, like that which gives its bright wings to what was the creeping worm.

And now, in thus gratefully taking leave of the readers who may have accompanied me, hand in hand, through pages of which every one has proceeded from my very heart and soul, I think I may also ask them to accompany me one single step further, in the following, which was once, letter by letter, dictated through me by Spirits at a circle in New York.

I give it now as copied from the By-Laws of Circle No. 1.

PRAYER.

“Almighty and most merciful Father, who hast created us in thy wisdom, and sustained us by thy love, look down with compassion upon thy children here assembled, and assist us, we beseech thee, in our search after Thy truth.

“Roll from our minds the clouds of error, ignorance, and superstition, that the light of Thy wisdom may shine upon us, cheering our hearts, enlightening our understandings, and rendering bright our pathway to Thy holy mansions, eternal in the heavens.

“Suffer Thy holy Spirits to minister unto us, as our guardians and guides, to lead us from darkness to light, and place us on the plane of everlasting progression.

“Drive far from us the darkness of our own errors and the mischiefs of our evil imaginings, and endue us with wisdom to receive and to know Thy truth. Teach us to seek knowledge with a single eye to our advancement and Thy glory, and defend us from all false doctrine. Enable us to know and to feel Thy love, and that, through Thy ministering Spirits, it is shielding us by day and watching over us by night, so that when we take our departure from this sphere, we may realize that the love of the Lord is the feast of the soul.”